Basketball Stars Rack Up Post-Season Accolades

Barnes is Named to All-South Region and All-District First Teams; Smith Receives All-America Honor

Mar. 26, 2012

Chris Barnes

Lyndsey Smith

Two UT Dallas basketball standouts have wrapped up their Comet careers with fresh accolades, as annnounced recently by several national collegiate sports groups.

Men's team senior forward Chris Barnes was named to the All-South Region first team by D3hoops.com and the All-District first team by the National Association of Basketball Coaches (NBCA).

Senior guard Lyndsey Smith of the women’s team received an honorable mention from the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association (WBCA) in its All-America team selection.

Barnes, a native of San Antonio, had already been named American Southwest Conference East Division Player of the Year for the second straight season this year after averaging 15.6 points and 6.0 rebounds per game. Barnes is the University’s all-time leading scorer, finishing his career with 1,321 points. He shot 47.1 percent from the field, hitting 39.7 percent of his three-point attempts, and was a 72.4 percent free-throw shooter.

The Comets’ men’s team finished the 2011-12 season 22-5 overall and won the division for the fourth straight season, going 16-4 in conference play. The team had a perfect 12-0 against teams within the ASC East.

Smith, a native of Gunter, Texas, was previously named All-South Region by D3hoops.com and the American Southwest Conference East Player of the Year.

Smith led the Comets with 16.3 points and 6.9 rebounds per game and finished her career with 1,375 points. She was a 42.8 percent shooter from the field, hitting 37.5 percent from three-point range, and shot a team-best 87.3 percent from the foul line.

The WBCA 10-member All-America team was selected by a vote of the selection committee.

The committee is made up of a chairperson and one representative from each of the eight Division III geographical regions.